A general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Krishnan is likely to help Elon Musk realise his aspiration of using Web3 and blockchain technologies to make the platform free of bots and spam accounts
More hands are coming on the deck to help Twitter's Chief Twit Elon Musk, as he attempts to rebuild the micro-blogging media into a platform that promotes free speech. The Tesla chief executive officer recently acquired Twitter for $44 billion after a six-month-long legal battle.
Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at Silicon Valley crypto-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), has stepped in to help the billionaire entrepreneur.
Sharing a photo from Twitter's San Francisco office this week, he tweeted, "Now that the word is out: I'm helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people. I (and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have a great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen."
Before speculations could fly about him taking up a permanent role at Twitter, Krishnan quickly added that he is "still very much in my day job at @a16zcrypto."
Now that the word is out: I’m helping out @elonmusk with Twitter temporarily with some other great people.
— Sriram Krishnan - sriramk.eth (@sriramk) October 30, 2022
I ( and a16z) believe this is a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen. pic.twitter.com/weGwEp8oga
As Krishnan chips in at Twitter, he will likely help Musk realise his aspiration of using Web3 and blockchain technologies to make the platform free of bots and spam accounts, which has been the Tesla CEO's biggest grouse. Earlier this year, a16z invested over $7.6 in crypto and blockchain-related projects. Moroever, Krishnan has always lent a listening ear to aspiring crypto founders. On his Linkedin profile, he proclaimed, "If you're a crypto founder, you know how to find me!."
Crypto exchange Binance backed Musk's Twitter acquisition by investing $500 million into the site. The company plans to build a team to help stop bots' proliferation on the micro-blogging platform.
Recently, Twitter added crypto-based features to its platform, including Ethereum and Bitcoin wallet address. It also released NFT verification for Twitter Blue buyers, turning profile pictures into hexagon shapes.
Krishnan's jumping into the fray to help out Musk is understandable, given his past association with the social media platform. After joining Twitter in 2017 as a member of its product division, he led core product teams, including home, timeline, onboarding, new user experience, search and discovery.
During his two-year stint, he claimed to have driven Twitter user growth to >20 per cent year-on-year growth during this period. He was also instrumental in launching several products, including a redesigned events experience.
Krishnan claimed to have played the role of an investor or advisor to many companies in a personal capacity between 2017 to 2021. This includes backing SpaceX, which was also founded by Musk, and Indian start-ups like CRED and Khatabook.
An alumnus of SRM Engineering College, Anna University, Krishnan is a Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology. He has written 'Programming Windows Azure' and co-hosts 'The Good Time Show' podcast with his wife, Aarthi Ramamurthy, where he interviews technocrats.
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